Mikomi
by keeper of most knowledge
Summary: When everything you try seems to backfire on you, there is only one thing you can do. Hope. AU, TeamSeven-centric, pairing undecided
1. A Beginning

Mikomi

It was a dark, rainy evening. The normally crowded streets of Konohagakure no Satou were devoid of life, the bustling market empty. It was through these streets that one Haruno Sakura walked, her bright pink hair a beacon in the twilight.

_I'm soo in for it,_ she thought. _I shouldn't have stayed behind to study._

She picked up the pace, jogging through the gloom, towards home. She couldn't know what was waiting for her.

* * *

Uzumaki Naruto was sitting on top of the Yondaime's head, swinging his feet over the edge, looking down at the village.

"Hey old men," he murmured, petting the stone head. "How ya doin'?"

His normally spiky blonde hair was flattened by the rain, and reflected in his cerulean eyes, was the spectre of pain.

_I better go, _he thought. _I don't want another beating for being up here._

He turned and walked off, each step slow, weighted. He knew what was waiting for him.

* * *

Sasuke walked home, through the damaged gates of the Uchiha Estate, hands buried deep in his pockets. Itachi's words floated through his mind as he gazed towards the Uchiha Shrine.

_Under the seventh tatami, lies the Uchiha Commentary scroll. It holds all the secrets of the clan._

Sasuke's legs stopped their forward motion, before turning towards the shrine.

Splashing through puddles of tears from the sky, he wondered at what he would find.

**AN: Well, there you go. The first chapter of Mikomi is up. Next chapter should be up soon. For future reference, I will be posting any jutsu or unfamiliar terms down here. Thanks!**


	2. A Meeting, A New Chance

Mikomi

Haruno Sakura's home was modest, but tidy. Completely normal. It was located at the outer edge of the civilian district, normal for a one-income family. She lived with her mother and father, and attended the Ninja Academy, also very normal. What was not normal, however, was what she was about to discover.

"Kaa-san! Tou-san! I'm home!" Sakura called as she walked up the small path to their front door.

She pulled out her keys, dangling on a pretty key ring decorated with a single Sakura blossom.

Her focus on her keys was so great, that she didn't even notice the front door was ajar until she reached out and placed her slender hand on the door knob.

Frowning, she pushed on the door, letting it swing wide open. The interior of the house was dark. An un-impenetrable blackness seemed to have filled her house with inky uncertainty. Behind her, lightening cracked, making her jump with fright.

"Is anybody in there?" She whispered, scared to move. She lifted one small foot after the other, creeping like a mouse, into her own home. In her frightened state she had forgotten to remove her ninja sandals, and was leaving damp prints over the polished wooden floor.

Another bolt of lightening flashed, illuminating a light switch. Sakura tiptoed over to it, now almost on the verge of screaming and making a run for it. Flicking it on, she blinked at the sudden brightness that was making her emerald eyes water. She peered down the hallway, panicky eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary...

There! Sakura gasped at the sight of a bloody kunai embedded in the wall. She fought to keep her breathing under control.

_Perhaps it's Tou-san's. He's a ninja..._ That train of thought abruptly derailed when she got closer to the kunai. It wasn't her Tou-san's. His had the Haruno circle carved into the ring. This one had no decoration anywhere on it. It was a darker grey than any other kunai she'd ever seen.

Sakura took a few more steps towards the kunai, before turning and moving down the hall towards the kitchen. Looking down at the floor, she saw an increasing depth of a dark substance.

She gulped, foul tasting bile rising in her throat, irritating it to the point of nausea. Sakura took one step, then another, and another, moving into the miniature lake of blood. It splooshed around her feet, flowing into her sandals. She took another three steps and turned into the doorway of the kitchen. Taking one more tiny step, Sakura fumbled around for the light switch, depressing it, making the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling spring to life. And on the kitchen table…

* * *

Thunder rumbled through the sky as one Uzumaki Naruto scrambled over several large bags of rubbish towards a large dumpster overflowing with fetid, stinking garbage. His foot slipped from underneath him, and Naruto's jump-suit covered body toppled forward, landing his upper chest in the mushy remains of what would have once been a tropical fruit salad., and his face precariously close to what was a rather large cod, in another life.

_Aww man! I just managed to get it clean too…_He got his hands underneath himself, and slowly extricated himself from the gently steaming pile of garbage.

Naruto brushed his hands gently against his chest, trying to remove as much of the rotted fruit as possible, without grinding it into the already stained top. He sighed heavily, realising that it was probably futile to try to keep looking for food here, it had all rotted already.

As he neared the edge of the alley, a pink-and-red blur impacted into him, knocking him off his feet.

"Sa-Sakura?"

* * *

Sasuke was walking down the still streets of Konoha, thinking over the contents of the Uchiha Commentary Scroll, trying to get his head around what on earth his clan had committed in the name of power.

_They…they were really going to use me in that way…_ He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't see the pink-and-red blur that ricocheted out of a nearby alley. However, he did hear the call of,

"Sakura! Stop!!" Sasuke's head snapped up and he reflexively reached out and grabbed the back of Sakura's dress. She opened her mouth to scream, and Sasuke clapped a hand over her mouth, simultaneously pulling her back into a bear hug.

He looked up to see Naruto stagger out of the alley opening. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the disheveled appearance of the other young boy. Sakura sagged in his arms, apparently realising that she was not going to be attacked. Naruto limped over to Sasuke and Sakura. The mini-maelstrom looked down at the pinkette, poked her once, and said,

"She's asleep, ya know." The raven looked down, and, sure enough, she was.

Sasuke sighed, this was getting, as a classmate of his would say, troublesome. Naruto grabbed Sakura's right hand and pulled it over his shoulder.

"Well. Come on then, give us a hand, _teme._" Cerulean eyne glare into obsidian orbs, challenging, daring. Sasuke sighs again, before picking up Sakura's free hand and slinging it across his shoulders.

"Fine then, _dobe._" The eyes met again, this time in agreement.

The two boys stepped off in time, down the street.

"So where do we go?" This was Naruto, looking towards his new friend.

"Whose place is closer?" A pause.

"Well... mine is, I guess..."

"So we go there. That work for you?"

"Ok. So, we take a left here..."

Above them in the skies, the rain slowed to a fine drizzle. Maybe it would be fine tomorrow.

**AN: **There you go, another chapter of Mikomi. It's a lot shorter than I would have liked, but I don't have much time to write. Next chapter should be up by Monday, assuming I get everything else done. If not, it should be up by next Wednesday. I'm trying to focus on the character development at the moment, but it's going very slowly.

Terms:

_Teme_ – Naruto's favourite term for Sasuke, means Bastard.

_Dobe_ – Sasuke's nickname for Naruto, translation is dead last

**Next Chapter Spoiler!:**

"Where the hell am I, and how did I – Naruto, why are you reading that?" Naruto looked up, and saw Sakura sit up. He put down the scroll, and called; "Hey Sasuke! She's alive!"


	3. A Brand New Friendship

Mikomi

Sasuke looked around Naruto's tiny apartment.

"Y'know, a shoebox does not constitute a place to live, Naruto." The sun-kissed boy glared at Sasuke, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, Sasuke-teme, not everybody has a huge family like you did." Shot back Naruto, as he gently placed Sakura onto his threadbare couch. Sasuke took this time to look around the cramped, but tidy apartment. There were a few books lying around, as well as some scrolls on chakra control, stealth, and basic taijutsu. Not much to say that a seven year old boy lived here.

"Sasuke..." The raven looked up from the bookshelf and half-turned. Naruto stood in a doorway to another room, looking nervous and half-twisting his shirt.

"Yeah, Naruto?" Sasuke couldn't figure out what the mini-maelstrom was worried about, unless...

"Umm. As you can kinda see... My place isn't big enough, and my landlord was about to, ummm, kick me out... Soo, if you don't mind... Can I come and stay at your place? Please?"

Sasuke was taken aback by this. No-one had ever asked such a thing before, but now that he thought about it, it seemed like a good idea. There was all that space, and only he was living there. Plus, it got very lonely...

"Yeah, why not?" He barely registered the words coming out of his mouth before an orange-clad blur filled his vision, and arms around his torso, squeezing tightly.

Sasuke's back straightened, before his brain realised that it was just Naruto, and he relaxed back into his grip, putting his own arms around Naruto's far too skinny chest. After a while, Naruto's grip relaxed around his chest.

Big cerulean eyes looked up into black orbs, and Naruto grinned. Not a oh-dear-you're-in-trouble-now grin, but an honest grin, a grin that said, thank you. Sasuke looked down at Naruto and said,

"If you're moving out, don't you need to pack?" Naruto shook himself free and raced off to what Sasuke assumed was his bedroom, to gather his few belongings.

The young raven moved Sakura's feet carefully, before he sat down on the couch.

_Well,_ he thought._ Life is about to get very interesting._

* * *

Sakura's head hurt. Well, actually, it wasn't her head, it was her heart. As she gradually came to, the young pinkette realised that she was lying on soft blankets on top of a hard surface. Another blanket covered her. Her sandals were missing, and someone was humming and reading a scroll. She sat up slowly, and said,

"Where the hell am I, and how did I – Naruto, why are you reading that?" Naruto looked up from his scroll, and saw Sakura sitting up. He put down the scroll, and called;

"Hey Sasuke! She's alive!" As Sakura fully woke up she noticed other things, like Naruto's damp hair, and clean t-shirt. That she had been changed into an old nightgown. And that she could smell something absolutely delicious.

Sakura looked around, she didn't recognise the surroundings. Naruto was sitting at a low table, looking rather relaxed. He had a small-ish scroll in his hand and a cup of green tea by his elbow.

"Oh good. Here, have some of this." Sasuke walked through the door, carrying a tray with a large bowl filled with soup and several smaller bowls. Sakura raised an eyebrow. This was not what she had expected from the Last Uchiha. A heavenly smell rose from the large bowl.

"Mmm… What is that?" Sakura asked, her mouth watering. Sasuke finished walking over to the table, and placed the tray down before her. The pinkette looked into the bowl, and inhaled deeply. The familiar scent of shabu-shabu filled her lungs, invigorating her.

"It seems to be what we're gonna eat tonight, Sakura." Naruto grinned at her, a heart-warming grin that filled her more than any food would ever do. The young blossom's smile wavered suddenly, as a wave of memories hit her, slapping her in the face with visceral grimness.

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other confusedly as their companion burst into tears.

"What do we do?" That was Sasuke, unfamiliar with open displays of any emotion besides disappointment and anger. Naruto responded by awkwardly waddling over to Sakura and wrapping his arms around her, pulling him into her chest. If anything, Sakura started sobbing louder, grabbing Naruto's shirt in her hands.

Naruto crooked a finger at Sasuke, silently asking him to come over to where he was kneeling with the crying pinkette. The raven blinked twice, before standing up and padding over the tatami to where they knelt, joining them on the floor.

Naturally, Sasuke was shocked when Naruto grabbed his arms and gently tugged then around Sakura and himself, so that all three were in an embrace. Sakura hiccupped as she felt the second set of arms slide around her, and then let her tears continue falling like a river. Gradually, Sasuke's rock solid barriers lowered, inch by inch, allowing bottled up emotions to flow out, emptying his body of pain, and hate.

As Sasuke's body relaxed, he looked up to Naruto's face through tear-stained eyes, seeing for the first time, tiny water droplets falling from cerulean eyes.

They cried together, over things which had affected them, and over things that they had no control over. Sasuke cried bitter tears for his family, and for his onee-san. Sakura wept for the souls of her parents, brutalised by an unknown shinobi. And Naruto, well he cried tears of joy, for finally, hopefully, finding a safe place.

Eventually, they cried themselves to sleep on top of the blankets, Sakura intertwined in Naruto's and Sasuke's arms, her comparatively small hands clutching Naruto's t-shirt, her pink hair cascading over her shoulder and under Sasuke's head. Sasuke himself had one hand resting on Sakura's shoulder, and his right was gently holding the mini-maelstrom's left. The young blonde had Sakura partially lying on him, providing more warmth than any blanket ever could, and Naruto's right hand reached up over Sakura's chest and was entangled in Sasuke's shirt. The three slept on, oblivious to the storm they were about to create.

The Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi, was pacing in his office. Haruno Kanshi and Hameme murdered by an unknown shinobi, their daughter, Sakura missing, and no one had seen hide or hair of Uzumaki Naruto or Uchiha Sasuke for the past two days.

_Wherever you are__, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, please be safe._

**AN: There you go, the third chapter of Mikomi. I can tell you, this one was a real pain to get out. I've typed more of this in the past two days than I did last week! Well, you can see now that this will be a real family/hurt/comfort/friendship fic now, instead of just some random ficlet. Thank you for reviewing, it tells me what I'm doing wrong, or right!**

**Hopefully, I'm getting the characterizations done well, but please remember that this story is AU, meaning Alternate Universe, meaning that it will deviate from canon quite a bit.**

**Sneaky Peek!:**

A small cry filled the air, and Sasuke cocked his head, trying to determine where the sound was coming from.

"What is that, guys?" Asked Sakura, executing a slow turn, scanning the street. Naruto's sharp hearing pinpointed the source of the sound. He walked over to the entrance of the alley, and noticed a small bundle on the ground. It was moving slightly, and a faint mewling sound was coming from it. The mini-maelstrom knelt down next to it and picked it up. Moving the blanket aside gently, he took in a sharp breath.

"It's a baby…"


End file.
